Chapter 43: You’d Better Be Alive
Dorian had been back in Brassville for two days, and Coyote had answered none of his messages.
The birds at the brothel where Coyote had been born had not seen him either. His late mother’s room was empty, his flat in Rustwing Alley was locked, and the elderly neighbour had offered a detailed complaint about the drains.
Dorian tried the Gilded Stag. Conveniently close to Coyote’s flat and noisy enough to keep business private, it seemed a sensible place to look.
He ordered a drink and asked the bartender.
“Know him. Comes and goes. Never know when.”
“When was he last here?”
“Couldn’t say. Tips well, though.”
Apparently, Coyote’s tips had made more of an impression than his visits.
Dorian finished his drink and considered the underground market. First, however, he needed to relieve himself.
He was halfway through when a young man with short blond hair hurried in. The stranger stopped beside him, looked at Dorian’s coat, then lowered his gaze.
Dorian ignored him until he had finished. He fastened his trousers and turned.
“Seen enough?”
“My apologies, sir. I think I know you.”
Dorian moved to the sink. “Usually people recognise me by my face.”
The young man laughed and finally attended to his own emergency.
“And who are you?” Dorian asked.
“Ren. You rescued me from three atrocious men near here. Then refused repayment. Most inconsiderate of you, sir.”
Dorian remembered him now. He had been just as pretty then, although less cheerful. “Right. You.”
“I’ve learnt some self-defence since.” Ren joined him at the sinks. “I still regret not thanking you properly.”
“I don’t take advantage of frightened people.”
“So you didn’t dislike me?” Ren’s voice sounded playful now. Almost.
“I disliked the timing. You, I tolerated.”
Ren laughed.
Dorian dried his hands. “Perhaps you can thank me in another way. I’m looking for someone called Coyote.”
Ren’s smile turned professional as the warmth left his eyes. “Why?”
“I’m Dorian Corvell. His friend.”
Ren studied him for a long minute, considering. “Ah. Yes. He mentioned you.”
“Nothing actionable, I hope.”
“Follow me, sir.” Ren gave a small, theatrical bow and grinned. “Or should that be ‘my lord’?”
Dorian privately resolved to shorten Coyote’s tongue.
Posters of Miss Renna Rouge covered the dressing-room walls. Dorian compared them with Ren, allowing for the copper curls, paint and considerable engineering beneath the gowns.
Ren unlocked a desk drawer and took out an envelope. “He sent this with a ridiculous bouquet after failing to turn up for our date.”
Coyote had sent flowers. Dorian looked at Ren with slightly more interest.
“I’d have preferred him,” Ren added, unfolding the letter. “He left numbers to pass to you if he didn’t contact me for two weeks. And your address.”
“Has it been two weeks?”
“Not yet.” Ren kept the letter in his hand. “And your address is?”
He asked lightly, as though it had just occurred to him. Dorian smiled and gave his workshop’s address. Ren checked it against the letter before handing it over. Coyote had always been good at choosing whom to trust.
“I thought he was just being dramatic,” Ren said.
Dorian entered the coordinates into his pocket navigator and returned the paper. “Well, that saves you a journey.”
At the door, Ren stopped him. “Tell him I’m waiting.” There was nothing professional about his expression now.
“I will.” Dorian left him carefully folding the letter.
Coyote, you lucky bastard.
He landed Lucky near the marked location and packed the machine into its capsule. Stinking rubbish blocked the gutters, and sewage leaked across the lane. Keeping his breaths shallow, he followed the navigator to an old pumping house. Someone had stripped the brass fittings from the entrance. Dorian checked the depth reading, then went round the back and descended the service stairs.
At the rusty iron door, he knocked and waited. A metal cover slid aside. Coyote examined him through the opening before releasing the locks. “Corvell.”
“You remember me. How reassuring.”
Coyote glanced towards the stairs. “Anyone follow you?”
“Not successfully.”
He stepped aside, then locked the door behind them.
Clean, warm air reached Dorian as he entered. He took a deep breath. The powerful filtration machine hummed behind its brass grille, its pressure gauge holding steady. He glanced at it with professional approval before moving past the steam heating panel.
“Drink?” Coyote asked, heading towards the bar.
“Something appropriate to the inconvenience.”
Coyote considered the shelves of imported wines and expensive spirits, then selected a bottle.
Dorian removed his coat and draped it over a leather armchair. His boots sank into the thick carpet as he settled beside the polished table. Opposite him hung a painting from the Scarlet Valleys. Taking such pieces beyond the border was strictly forbidden, and the Duke’s penalties for art thieves had not changed in centuries. No sensible dealer would touch one.
Coyote had hung it where he could appreciate it while drinking.
Beneath it lay the skin of an animal Dorian could not identify. He remembered the fur beneath his own bare feet, years ago in the Corvell library.
Dorian had been six or seven, already back at the mansion. His sisters still treated him as an intruder. Every night, he waited until the corridors were quiet, slipped out of bed and went down to read. He carried his slippers until he reached the library, then usually forgot to put them on.
The armchair was large enough for him to curl up in. He sat with his knees beneath his nightshirt and a heavy book propped against them. The reading lamp was turned low. Someone passing the door might otherwise notice.
One night, the window latch scraped.
Dorian looked up. A boy climbed through the window, his coat hanging loosely from narrow shoulders. He froze when he noticed Dorian beside the lamp.
His eyes moved from Dorian to the library door. “Are you going to call someone?”
Dorian glanced towards the door himself. He could already imagine his sisters’ delight at finding him out of bed. A burglar in the library would probably become his fault too.
“No. But shut the window. It’s cold.”
The boy closed it carefully. He stayed beside it for a moment, watching Dorian lower his book. Then his attention shifted to the painting above the chair. He tilted his head, studying it, before looking down at the animal skin. He crouched and ran a hand through the fur, spreading his fingers.
Dorian lowered his feet to the floor. “There’s another chair.”
The boy shook his head and settled on the skin instead, unbuttoning his coat. Dorian moved the lamp closer. As the boy rubbed his hands together, the light revealed scraped knuckles and a clumsy patch on one cuff.
Dorian pushed a bowl of nuts, his midnight snack, towards the boy. “I’m Dorian.”
“Coyote.” The boy grabbed a handful and wolfed it down.
“Are you an heir?” he asked a few minutes later. The bowl was empty.
Dorian hesitated, then nodded.
“Lucky boy.” Coyote looked around. “What are you reading?”
Dorian slid down from the armchair and sat beside him on the skin. He began retelling the story.
Coyote came back often after that. They met in the library at night and in the garden during the day. Dorian always had another story to tell him and something snatched from the mansion’s kitchens. Coyote read slowly and guessed at longer words. Dorian corrected him, and Coyote soon grew quicker, impatient to find out what happened next.
Since then, Dorian had seen Steamhollow antiques on Coyote’s walls, stolen vampire paintings and incomprehensible works from other worlds. Coyote appreciated an unreasonable number of colours, preferably all in the same frame. The skins came from creatures throughout Mireth. Whatever Coyote chose, he always put the two together.
Dorian watched him pour two generous measures. “You appear to be managing.”
“I prepared for difficult circumstances.”
Dorian accepted his glass. “You haven’t answered any of my messages.”
Coyote gestured towards the desk beneath the active hologram station. His brass mail device lay open among several tools and loose parts.
“It broke. I tried fixing it myself.”
Dorian set down his glass and went to examine the damage. Maps and open records hovered above the desk. Coyote returned a stack of folders to the archive cabinet and dismissed the projection.
“I was planning to take it to the shop,” he said. “But since you’re here already, you can save me a trip.”
Dorian picked up the device, studied the mechanism, then looked over the loose parts. “How fortunate that I came looking for you.”
“I thought so too.”
Coyote watched him work for a moment. “So you met my Ren?”
Dorian glanced up and met his friend’s eyes before returning to the device. “He asked me to tell you he’s waiting.”
Coyote lowered his glass. “Terrible timing.”
He took another drink before continuing. “So, how was your trip? Pleasant?”
“I was whipped and nearly drowned. The hospitality improved afterwards.” Dorian grinned.
“And the Drommala?”
“All done. The Loteri are satisfied. Borderline ecstatic.”
“And the Council actually paid?”
“All ten thousand.”
Coyote raised his glass. “Considering buying a mansion?”
“Considering paying my debts. And possibly dividing my time between here and Tavra Sol.”
Coyote paused with the glass halfway to his mouth. “The Steppe?”
“Yes.”
“Found yourself a particularly hospitable Loteri, have you?”
Dorian selected a screwdriver from the pouch at his belt without a word.
Coyote studied him for a moment, then smiled. “You’re serious.”
Dorian tightened a screw with unnecessary attention. “You may stop looking so pleased.”
He refitted the cover and switched the machine on. After checking the controls, he slid it towards Coyote, its display filling with messages.
“There. What’s been going on around here?”
“You’ve seen the warnings about purple collars?”
“Yes. The Keeper warned me too. Any news about Ophelia?”
Coyote retrieved a small box from the safe and opened it. Dorian recognised Ophelia’s work as he lifted the broken bracelet. “Where?”
“Beside a sealed mirror in the Scarlet Valleys. Still no sign of her, but someone broke into my flat and took her bags.”
“Anything else missing?”
“No. They left the valuables.” Coyote took a sip of whisky. “There’s Vesk, too. Men in purple collars were seen following him before he vanished.”
Dorian frowned. “His thugs couldn’t find him?”
“Not a trace.” Coyote looked at Dorian over his glass. “I have bad news about Eric Still, though. Remember his sister, Samara? Red hair and a waist to kill for.”
Dorian remembered finding her in his bed after someone’s stag party. She was too drunk to recall his name. He left her to sleep alone and retreated to Coyote’s room. In the morning, she called him impotent.
“Ah. Her.”
“They found Eric drowned in a river near his mistress’s house on the outskirts of Brassville. Samara identified him. Someone had destroyed his fingertips with acid.”
Dorian set the bracelet back in its box. “And his mistress?”
“Knew very little. The water had washed away any reflective traces, but one of the birds remembered seeing Eric with a stranger in a purple collar before he disappeared.”
Dorian swirled the whisky in his glass. “So they’re hunting Walkers.”
“Even Boozer met one offering work and excellent money. ORC is finally after them. About bloody time.” Coyote closed the box and returned it to the safe. “I’d prefer them to find Ophelia while she can still tell us what happened.”
For a while, they drank in silence.
Then Coyote asked, “Any useful artefacts from your well-paid journey?”
“Quite a collection. Come to the workshop.”
“I have something for you to examine, too.” Coyote fetched a bundle from the safe and unfolded the stained handkerchief, revealing a dull crystal. “Bren says it can hold gallons of fuel, but it needs a suitable transfer device.”
Dorian took it and turned it beneath the lamp.
“He gave me a blueprint.” Coyote called up the diagram on the hologram station. “Can you make it?”
Dorian studied it for a while. “Possibly.”
He set the crystal down. Coyote reached for the wrapping, but Dorian had caught sight of the embroidery. He drew the handkerchief beneath the lamp. The stitching around the surviving initial was familiar. He examined it, then the lace edging. “Where did you find this?”
“Coat pocket. Abandoned camp in Epinalium.”
“How long had it been empty?” Dorian’s voice went rough.
“Hard to say. A couple of days, perhaps. The bread was still soft. Why?”
“Because I know this embroidery.” Dorian touched the M. “It’s part of my father’s monogram. Once we wash it, we should find a V beside it.”
Dorian looked up from the cloth. “Two years ago, he was in the Desert Lands under a false name, studying reflective inheritance and ways to bind Mirrorwalker abilities.”
Coyote stared at him. “Then he might still be alive.”
“Yes.” Dorian paused. “And he hasn’t bothered to see me or send a bloody message.”
Coyote moved closer and rested a hand on his shoulder. “We haven’t heard his side of the story.”
Dorian turned the handkerchief over and examined the stitching again.
For seventeen years, I thought you were dead. You’d better still be alive, Father. I have a few things to say to you.
